Browsing by Author "Malmivaara, Hanna"

Aims. The aim of this study was to find out what kind of social reality is produced about teachers’ occupational well-being in Finnish newspapers’ opinion section in the time of the pandemic. This was seen to include the question of who talk about the subject and how, what kind of subject positions are given to teachers and what kind of power-relations are included in the conversation. The news about teachers wanting to change fields and recent studies of teachers’ decreased well-being (including the research produced by The Trade Union of Education in Finland) justify the currentness of this study. The pandemic made significant changes to the everyday life which also raised the question about teachers’ occupational well-being and working conditions. In this study the occupational well-being of teachers is seen through the occupational well-being theory of Rauramo (2012), Self Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000) and Job Demands – Resources –model (Demerouti et. al., 2001). Methods. The epistemological and ontological backround was based on social constructionism and the method of analysis was critical discourse analysis (CDA). The research data included 29 writings which were from three Finnish newspapers. Four of the writings were from Aamulehti, four from Turun Sanomat and 21 from Helsingin Sanomat. The data was gathered in November 2021 and the writings were published from March 2020 to October 2021. The participants of the conversation were teachers, other professionals of the field of education, politicians, and external participants of the field of education. The participants were categorised into groups by writer status and the voice of the writing, and the categories were teacher, neutral and defender of teachers. Results and conclusions. There were four discourses constructed from the data. The discourses were The concern about teachers, Teachers in distress, Satisfied teacher and The change of society. Teachers were given different subject positions in each discourse and they were The help needer, Exhausted teacher, Capable worker and satisfied teacher and The executor of the impossible task. The subject of teachers’ occupational well-being was mostly seen as a problem that needed a solution. Teachers held the decision makers accountable, whereas the other participants argued that the teachers were responsible for their own well-being. The discussion about the subject had an emphasis on negation as well as the most recent studies on teachers’ occupational well-being. The negativity of discussion can decrease the attractiveness of the education industry which is already reflected from recent studies.